Hello, world! This blog began on September 28, 2007, and so far nobody has come looking for me with tar and feathers.
On my honor, I will do my best not to bore you. All comments are welcome as long as your discourse is civil and your language is not blue.

Happy reading, and come back often!

And whether my cup is half full or half empty, fill my cup, Lord.

Copyright 2007 - 2017 by Robert H.Brague

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah-Dah-Dah

If you are the sort of person who notices small details, you may have noticed the following line in my previous post:

You may have thought it was an interesting decoration used as a divider and nothing more.

I will tell you a secret.

It is not just an interesting decoration used as a divider.

It has meaning.

There was method in my madness.

Let us put a portion of that line under the RhymeswithPlague Virtual Microscope (RVM, patent pending) and examine it more closely:

Three dots, three dashes, three dots.

Ring any bells?

My dad taught me this pattern with a flashlight when I was child. We went out into the backyard and pointed my new Boy Scout flashlight into the night sky. Using the button on the switch, I did it. I flashed three short flashes, three long flashes, and then three more short flashes. I have never forgotten it. Fortunately, we lived in a rural area over which airplanes rarely passed. On many a summer night I could be found out in the backyard with my flashlight, signalling to the universe. Why?

It is now time for the big reveal.

The pattern represents the letters S O S in Morse Code, which was invented by this man for use with this device:

S O S, S O S, S O S. The international distress signal. Some people say it means “Save Our Ship” but that may not be true.

When there is vocal contact, another international distress signal that can be used is “May Day, May Day” which is actually “M’aidez, m’aidez” which means “Help me, help me” in French.

When there is not vocal contact, your only hope is three shorts, three longs, three shorts.

Three dots, three dashes, three dots.

Dih-dih-dit Dah Dah Dah Dih-dih-dit.

Save our ship, because we’re sinking.

Very fitting for our celebrity-obsessed world, where some people actually think it is important that we know that Joy Behar is leaving The View. And Elizabeth Hasselbeck. And possibly Baba Wawa.

The most distressing thing of all is that many people who heard the news thought it was important too.

Oh, there are many things lots worse than The View, things so bad I wouldn’t dream of bringing them up on a G-rated blog. They’re all symptoms of the culture in which we find ourselves.

And we’re sinking.

[Update, 7:45 a.m., 12 March 2013: Thanks to comments received from klahanie and Yorkshire Pudding on my previous post, I have been made aware that The View and the women of The View are unknown in the United Kingdom and, one hopes, throughout the English-speaking entire world. My apologies for having been provincial and chauvinistic, but the original premise is still valid. Readers outside the U.S. may replace “The View” with their own local entertainment atrocities. --RWP]

I repeat:

If you don’t have access to a telegraph key, you can always use one of these:

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About me

has lived on earth for 76 years and has been married for 54 of those years to Ellie, his wife. They have two sons, one daughter, the appropriate assortment of in-laws, and six absolutely magnificent grandchildren. He enjoys reading, playing the piano, driving in the country, sitting by the ocean, watching birds fly, gazing into a roaring fire, holding his wife's hand, and spending time with his grandchildren. He doesn't fancy doing yard work, walking a dog who definitely is not in the mood, or cleaning up after one who is (RIP Jethro, 2004-2013).

Me, circa 2010 (with Mrs. RWP)

A reader in Oregon has requested a current photograph. For the thick of skull, I want to say that I am not exceedingly tall nor is Mrs. RWP exceedingly short. She is sitting in a chair; I am standing behind her and slightly to her right, your left. I am nothing if not thorough. Handsome and thorough. Exceedingly intelligent, very handsome, and thorough. I forgot humble.

Me, circa 1943

A few months before this photograph was taken, I fell through a hole in a chain link fence in New York City and landed on my head on a school’s cement playground that was six feet below sidewalk level. I had a brain concussion. Some people think this helps explain why I am the way I am today. Other people insist nothing can explain why I am the way I am today.

Poem by a Yorkshire Lad

Song for Lost Youth

Perhaps I should have cradled it
Like a dove
Kept it safe with tender love
But I squandered it -
Gushing-blundering-raging
Like a wild mountain stream
Desperate for an ocean
That was but a distant dream.
...I just never thought
That I could have loitered in the shallows
Reflecting the blueness of the sky
- Concealing silver fishes
- Quietly biding my time
- Stretching it out.
And so, and so it's gone now
- My ephemeral youth
- That precious once only gift
- That honeyed sweetness,
Leaving only the trembling resonance
Of distant echoes
From half-remembered hills.